The Devil Inside Is The Year's First Surprise Hit With $15 Million On Friday

Despite negative reviews and even audience backlash, The Devil Inside is officially the first hit of 2012. The low-budget movie distributed by Paramount made $15 million on Friday and is on track for a $30 million weekend, enough to unseat Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol from the top spot at the box office, and making it the first surprise hit in seemingly forever. Paramount acquired the film through its Insurge for just $1 million, and thanks to midnight screenings that grossed $2 million on Thursday night, it recouped its budget before it even officially opened. Now that's what you call a profit.

The one thing that could stand in the way of the movie's dynamite weekend is the "F" CinemaScore given by audiences, undoubtedly thanks to the movie's abrupt ending. But there's not really any competition out there, especially for people looking for a horror movie, and at this point the movie is guaranteed to be #1 at the box office, so this is one of those times when a CinemaScore really, really doesn't matter. If you're looking for good news about a movie that's actually worth a damn, David Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo had the smallest drop from its previous week among all the movies in release; though regarded as sort of a flop, the movie will have made $76 million by the end of this weekend and will be well on its way to crossing $100 million. Not bad for the film that advertised itself as "The Feel-Bad Movie of Christmas."

If you saw The Devil Inside-- and especially if you actually liked it-- please jump in the comments and let us know what's up with this first big hit of the year.